While many attributes were widely praised during Dua Lipa’s mainstream emergence in 2017, her live performance ability was not one of them. Though Dua’s vocals have always been strong, it was unrelentingly acknowledged that she didn’t arrive on the scene with heaps of natural charisma or polished choreography. Dua went viral for her now-iconic ‘pencil sharpener dance’ to ‘One Kiss’ and the negative reaction to a 2018 performance led to the phrase “Go girl, give us nothing” becoming popular internet slang for years to come after a comment left under the video exclaimed, “I love her lack of energy, go girl give us nothing!”. For many years, if you typed the phrase into YouTube, Dua’s performance would be the first result. It’s been both initially shocking and intensely satisfying to witness Dua Lipa transform into an artist acknowledged for their masterfully refined choreography, high energy performances and visual perfectionism over the years. As a result, Dua’s headline performance at Glastonbury’s famous Pyramid Stage on Friday felt like less of an arrival and more of an illustrious victory lap in the form of back-to-back hits performed by an absolute pro in her field.
Dua’s career is one built upon years of hard work and dedication: moving to the UK from Kosovo on her own to pursue music aged just 15, growing her audience over many years and undergoing intense physical training to improve her dancing in more recent times. Performing is clearly incredibly important to Dua and she has also stated numerously in interviews that headlining Glastonbury in particular is the pinnacle of this for her. This passion manifests itself unmistakably in the ambition and delight she brings to her set, culminating in an hour and 45 minutes of slick high-energy pop perfection.
Not only does Dua have the professionalism and the stamina to carry this kind of performance, she also has the extensive back-catalogue of hits to facilitate it. When watching the set you realise how many certified crowd-pleasing bangers Dua has at her disposal, meaning she had the freedom to construct the most compelling setlist possible without being confined to playing all her hits. As a result, Dua performed a selection of the big hits that everyone wanted to hear, as well as some delightful surprises from the past and highlights from her new album, Radical Optimism. While the upbeat pop focus of the set was unwavering in its mission, Dua switched up the pace and the musical production throughout just enough to keep the flow of the set varied and interesting.
The set opened with confident swagger with the indelibly catchy single ‘Training Season’ from Dua’s most recent album before barrelling straight into some of her biggest hits like ‘One Kiss’, ‘Break My Heart’ and ‘Levitating’, with the production focussing on pulsating baselines that provided a bold sense of intensity and anticipation.
While maintaining the pop bangers, the energy became somewhat more mellow and dreamy as Dua returned from a costume break with the bittersweet and wistful ‘These Walls’ before entering fan-favourite and personal highlight of the set ‘Be The One’. The song was Dua’s first major hit and holds a special place for her in her catalogue; it felt particularly emotive hearing thousands of people repeat the bridge in unison as Dua stood with the crowd for this moment, with a visceral euphoria taking over as the song rounded out with bombastic drums and chiming bells.
During this section, Dua went on to bring out psychedelic music artist Tame Impala to the stage to sing their hit ‘The Less I Know The Better’ in a particularly crowd-pleasing moment before unearthing two unexpected gems from her sophomore album Future Nostalgia - ‘Love Again’ and ‘Pretty Please’ - which were fantastic deep cuts to choose performed with captivatingly slick choreography.
The building energy exploded into an all-out rave as Dua emerged in a grunge-referencing outfit on a stage in the middle of the crowd and transformed it into an exhilarating night club complete with lights and confetti. Here, Dua Lipa basked in the exhilarating pleasure of her music as she effortlessly remixed and transitioned between her most jump-worthy hits like ‘Hallucinate’, ‘New Rules’ and ‘Electricity’ (even including elements of her Barbie soundtrack hit ‘Dance The Night’) before cooling off in an ecstatic glow as she swayed arm in arm with her backup dancers while singing the Elton John collaboration ‘Cold Heart’.
The set rounded off with a high octane pop maximalist finale - a stunning performance of the ethereal Radical Optimism track ‘Happy For You’ before bursting into a final run of smash dance hits with the joyous ‘Physical’, and ‘Don’t Start Now’, ultimately concluding with dazzling fireworks and rapturous applause while singing arguably one of the greatest pop songs of the decade, ‘Houdini’.
It’s impressive that Dua was clearly singing live throughout this set with her (often underappreciated) powerful and raspy vocal tone on full display. While perhaps not a Celine Dion level vocal talent, the ability to sing this well while performing non-stop dance choreography is genuinely astounding and a true testament to Dua’s hard work and perfectionism. Dua stated prior to her performance that she wanted people to be able to dance and have fun at her set and this is exactly what she achieved with her irresistibly joyous performance - from the crowds lining the fields of Somerset to all those dancing around the living room while streaming on BBC iPlayer like me.
These danceable pop hits are a format that Dua has mastered to an art over the years. Her songs are endlessly catchy and easily listenable for a mainstream audience without being derivative or mindless: just bulletproof choruses that anyone and everyone can sing along to. Her artistry is often dismissed for its lack of depth or boundary-pushing, but I don’t believe that every artist needs to divulge their most raw emotions for poetic relatability or challenge the status quo with experimental reinvention and genre transgression. There are many legendary artists that do this, but we also need artists who simply allow us to have fun and dance the night away to songs that resonate with a mass audience.
In a world where it seems like every artist aspires for authenticity and grounded reliability, Dua is an artist who has identified and honed her niche in providing dazzling pop perfection without feeling the need to stray too far from this mission: she knows what works for her and she does it flawlessly. With her Glastonbury set, Dua Lipa achieved everything she could have set out to do and proved why the world still needs pop stars like her.
